Neighborhood Watch – April Meeting Recap

We had another excellent turnout for our April neighborhood Watch meeting! We want to thank all of you for attending, and want to apologize for the acoustics in the room and the difficulty people had hearing each other when we broke into discussion groups by District. We want our meetings to be a helpful and productive discussion for community concerns, and certainly we understand the frustration of not being able to hear well. We were pleasantly surprised by the excellent turnout, and we were standing room only! But we will work on finding a venue for future meetings that will work better for the breakout sessions.

Sgt. Mirantha Wilson of the Speedway Police Department welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave a presentation on personal and home safety. She discussed various ways people can improve their safety, from maintaining a state of heightened awareness of your surroundings to getting to know your neighbors and what is “usual” in your neighborhood. Sgt. Wilson also indicated that everyone should decide for themselves what levels of personal protection they wish to take and would work best for themselves and their families. Certainly, anyone who feels that purchasing a firearm is a good choice for them, should obtain all appropriate training and permits. There is also a personal safety class available through the Speedway Parks & Recreation called “Refuse to be a Victim.” The class is coming up this month. Click the link for more information and to register by May 11th!

Sgt. Wilson also had Neighborhood Watch yard signs available for a small donation to the SPD Extracurricular Fund. Neighborhood Watch signs are certainly not a 100% sure means of crime prevention, but combined with our other efforts, do assist as a deterrent. The signs give more visibility to our Neighborhood Watch program, sending a message that our community cares and looks out for one another, and of course, partners with SPD and will call in any suspicious activities or other situations we feel SPD can assist on. For more information on how you can obtain a Neighborhood Watch sign, click this link.

Sgt. Wilson also discussed the need for Speedway residents to not be afraid to call in anything that they feel is a problem that requires SPD. She stressed that it is not a bother, and it is always better to get things checked out – even small things that don’t seem important. It is far better to call and have it turn out to not be a problem, than to not call something in that might have been prevented. Most often, people start out with small crimes, vandalism, petty theft, etc. Sometimes that seems unimportant, but by not calling in, sends a message to the bad guys that they can get away with it – and usually keep moving up to more serious crimes. Calling in something – however insignificant – could potentially prevent a crime and send a message to would-be criminals that we care and every time they try something, SPD shows up!

We thank you all for your attendance, and again – we apologize for the sound problems! We hope to find a venue for our next meeting in June (date TBD) that will better accommodate the individual discussions.